The conversations that I have with my children every morning while I drive them to school.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Donkey Killers

We talked cars today. Why are all cars finished with fancy paint that scratches with the minimal contact with another car, a wall, a small rock, or almost any other object? Seriously, what are car manufacturers thinking??? Cars are finished like grand pianos, not like something that is moving around in the city every day, with people getting in and out, parking in tight spots, supermarket carts bumping into them, going over dirts and small rocks. Shouldn't cars exteriors be made of some sort of rubbery material that wouldn't get damaged from its intended use? Better yet, shouldn't all cars have proper bumpers designed for the realities of parking? Cars used to have proper bumpers (although I admit that those seemed to fall down instead of absorb minor impacts). We started looking at cars on our way to school this morning. Every single one had dings and scratches on the paint...

I proposed that we build the Poler-Weitzman car with the exterior made entirely of rubber and bumpers mounted on dampers that absorb the typical bumps of street parking. No "parking assist" system. Just bump into the other cars (that is what they will do to you anyway!). There are many product categories in which one big factory in China makes the products for most brands who just make some tweaks, e.g., mobile phones. Maybe one day most cars will be made by the same factory in China. We could then take the basics of, say, a Prius, and just change the exterior to be all rubber.

As we were arriving to school an SUV with a large grille guard drove buy. I told the kids that in Venezuela those are called mata-burros (donkey killers) and that when I was a youth we all put them on our SUVs (since we did go to forests, mountains, rivers, beaches, etc). The most hard core people had winches on their mata-burros, to be able to get themselves out of trouble if they got stock. Now, that is practical! None of this porcelain paint that today's cars have.